


Moving Forward

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Elenium/Tamuli Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of administrative burdens. And love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to my recipient, who made economic history reading suprisingly relevant.
> 
> Written for Tali

 

 

The Pandion motherhouse in Demos claims be to unchanging, like the militant order it holds. The stark stone of the walls: the stark lines of duty. The ceaseless routine of chapel and drill: the eternity of the Church and its defence. The community of brothers, new faces replacing old: the

'the bloody unceasing arrival of paperwork.' Vanion glared at the stacks on the preceptor's desk. 

He'd arrived two days earlier, happy to escape the cloying clerical manoeuvrings filling Chyrellos since his investiture as preceptor. Since then, all he could see was changes. One section of wall had been rebuilt. The fields by the Arruka road had been left fallow, unploughed and weed-filled. The rhythms of cloistered life altered beyond return now, with little time for the practice yard and the measuring looks on familiar faces.

The words of the familiar ritual of the entry challenge float up from below and he looked out to see Sephrenia, marked by her white robe, returning. Walking down the stairs and into the courtyard, he sank to his knees before her as she dismounted.

'Will you bless me, little mother?'

And the blessing was the same, her cool hands on his face and the comfort of the Styric language as much as the meaning behind the words. She gestured him back to his feet, afterward.

'We're no longer student and teacher, Vanion' she said, firmly.

'You'll always be my teacher, little mother.'

'You're preceptor now.'

'That doesn't change anything.'

She paused, looked away and then directly at him. 'It does. Oh, it does.'

***

It was late at night, the torches in the hallways flickering low. Vanion hesitated before knocking at the closed door. There was a moment's silence before the reply came.

'Come in.'

He opened Sephrenia's door and stood on the threshold, not presuming to go in further.

'Would you join me for a cup of tea? I know it's late,' he offered.

Sephrenia stood up from the low chair close by the fire. 'I never turn down tea, early or late.' She smiled. 'Will you come in?'

'I've put the kettle on in the study.'

'The famous inner sanctum' she said lightly.

'Hardly that.' He gestured to the hallway. 'Shall we?'

They sat side by side, Sephrenia cradling her teacup, Vanion finishing his drink quickly. When he broke the silence, it sounded more like confession than conversation. 

"I never signed up for this.'

'This?'

'Honour, glory and the search for affordable fodder. I've spent the last three days searching for someone with hay to sell that won't bankrupt the order or sicken the horses. I can fight, I can eventually bash that knowledge into the novices' heads. That's the world I know, down to my bones. I'm not ready to be preceptor.' He drew in a breath. 'God knows I want to serve this order. And God knows that having someone competent to negotiate the politics and pay attention to the daily problems that never go away is what we need right now. I'm worried that I'm not that person.' 

He didn't look at Sephrenia.

'Teaching wasn't what I expected, either.' Her tone implied a sense of fellowship. 'I thought it would be simpler. For a group of men reputed to think about nothing but weaponry, you're far easier to become fond of than I would have imagined. And that makes what I do more than simply a job.'

Vanion leant forward and picked up the kettle. 'More tea?'

'I think you're beginning to understand my fondness for it.' She held out her cup. 

***

He was walking back from chapel when one of the novices tentatively stretched out a hand in front of him and told Vanion that there was a royal courier waiting for him outside. The summons to court that the courier delivered was unsurprising, with a tone of contempt undisguised by any attempt at diplomatic phrasing. The purpose behind it was equally unsurprising.

He barely knocked now, and entered the room without pausing.

'I'm not going to go through another petty attempt by Aldreas to increase the reach of the crown. The Pandions are answerable to the Church, not to whatever foggy, mindless notion some toady says loudly enough and often enough to catch on.'

'I see you met the courier, dear one.' Sephrenia said patiently. 'Are you going to Cimmura?'

Vanion sighed briefly. 'Not that I want to go. But yes, it will be better to handle whatever he's plotting in person. I still refuse to run off this moment like a courtier.'

He thought for a moment. 'You're not too busy at the moment. Would you like to come? We'll leave in two days.'

'Not to court, but certainly to the chapterhouse,' she answered. 'Why don't you go down to the practice yard and drill some novices. You'll feel better for some productive yelling.'

***

Sephrenia had spent the last week in the Cimmura chapterhouse, though Vanion had barely seen her while he spent his days at the palace and she attempted to correct potentially dire mispronunciations adopted by the knights stationed there. He finally lost patience and invited her out for the day to look around the city. They rode towards the opposite quarter to the palace, passing merchants' stalls and taverns already well patronised. 

'This was where I spent my childhood, you know,' Vanion said, gesturing to the city as a whole. 'Most of the other novices come straight from their country estates to the motherhouse, but I barely knew what a field was.'

'Your family must have held land, though, for you to become a knight.'

'Mortgaged and sold and leased. It was just my father and me, and he would barely venture beyond the palace. He was looking for amusement or advancement, I think, and rarely succeeded in either. Surely different to your childhood, Sephrenia.'

She laughed softly. 'Perhaps, dear one. Grass underfoot, instead of stone. And I had a sister.'

They stopped a drink at one of the more respectable looking taverns before Sephrenia turned the discussion from reminiscences to the present.

'What happened at the palace?'

Vanion took a large gulp of ale and summarised, 'Aldreas attempting to draft the order directly into the command structure his army. Me refusing. All crown funding and support stripped, though the idea for that definitely came from Annias. The Earl of Lenda sending me out before I got myself arrested for insulting the king.'

'Is the funding needed?' she asked.

'Unless we want to consider retraining some warhorses as ploughhorses, yes. We've got enough land to support ourselves and raise revenue in theory, but it's been let go over the last decade. I don't know enough to make it turn around quickly.'

Sephrenia sipped her own drink, thinking.

'What about something other than farming?' she said speculatively.

'What?'

'You're sending Pandions out across Eosia looking for information, most of them posing as merchants. I know that you told them to not to draw attention by doing well, but surely they could make some money. If they already have a network in place for passing on military and political information, they might be able to share news about financial opportunities as well.'

He considered the idea for a moment. 'It could work. Wouldn't hurt, at least.'

'And maybe the order could invest in something other than farmland. City property has higher rents.'

'City property?' He smiled. 'An inn, for example. Given that Pandions are not going to be welcome in the city, it would be useful to hear even second- or third-hand news.'

Sephrenia smiled back. 'Staff the inn with Pandions. A porter, an inn-keeper.'

'And it would be a convenient safehouse as well.' Vanion reached out for her hand. 'Thank you. Do you want my job?'

She laughed. 'You make it sound so enticing. No. But shall we go and see if there are any inns for sale?'

***

The walls of the motherhouse loomed on the horizon, standing as both refuge and retreat. The sun was beating down, and one corner of Vanion's mind noted that this must be good hay-making weather and so maybe the prices would drop.

He reined in his horse, coming to a halt. Sephrenia is next to him, their escort further down the road. Her black hair was gleaming.

'Dear one,' he began. Her phrase, her endearment. He stopped.

She looked steadily at him, glanced down for a moment and then reached out with one hand. It was not the calm presence of a blessing, instead she rested her fingertips on his lips, faintly unsteady.

'This can't change anything' she said, words offered like an invocation.

The fields outside the motherhouse have been cut. A courier is waiting at the gatehouse. Small white daisies can be seen, low on the ground.

'It does,' Vanion says. 'It does.'

 


End file.
